


dead men tell no tales (and alive ones try not to)

by h4amarch



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (only mentioned for the last two), Angst, Assisted Suicide, Emotional Manipulation, Fluff, Gen, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Ghostbur, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:35:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28722948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h4amarch/pseuds/h4amarch
Summary: Ghostbur is kind, caring, loving; and that makes it all the more difficult to remember that Wilbur is gone, actually gone. The realization is slow and bitter under that sweetness, like the aftertaste of fresh honey down the throat.Conversations with the ghost of a dead man, from the people that knew him best.—This is tagged under Video Blogging RPF for the category and characters just for visibility! Please remember that this is not actually RPF (real people fiction). The people represented in this work are strictly meant to be the characters, not the people who play them. (Please AO3 the character's name is Philza and his last name is Minecraft)
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 6
Kudos: 101





	dead men tell no tales (and alive ones try not to)

“Phil, I feel like- I feel like you, you feel very awkward when talking to me,” comes the echoing voice from inside his house, stuttering as the owner’s mind struggles to hold onto the specks of hurt hidden in the words, tucked away into the nooks and crannies of each curl of his tongue. Those are places where even the blue running through him can’t flush out, can’t scrape clean to leave a happy, hollow shell of a person.

Phil stops for a moment, re-evaluates his tone, his expression, his stance. _Has he shown any hesitation in speaking with Ghostbur,_ he wonders, _and what gave him away?_ His mind races to pick out the details of his actions, a mile a minute as if in battle, and he opens the door again to face his dead son with what he hopes is a better, more convincing mask.

All of it is useless, because Ghostbur isn’t even looking at him, installing the next set of steps on his new staircase. “I promise you,” he continues, “I’m- I’m, I’m the same person I always was, I think.” There’s a blank smile on his face, like always, but the doubt clings to his eyes, a shadow that his blue buries his despair under.

“You think?” Phil’s lips form the words before he can stop himself, because he wants to hold onto that doubt, as if this ghost, so removed from the tragedy that hangs over all of them, can return to Wilbur if he just thought hard enough.

But all it does is make Ghostbur’s voice waver, make his arms tremble as he slots a panel of spruce wood into place and murmurs, “I think.” His eyes are murky with blue, as always. Phil wonders what it is that he thinks exactly, how he can think he is the same person when he can't even remember what kind of person he'd become.

Phil frowns, watching Ghostbur’s faintly shaking shoulders, wondering what he should even say, what he _could_ say that wouldn’t be immediately swept out of the other’s mind like dust. “You definitely seem less…” _Heartbroken? Despairing?_ “...chaotic,” he settles on, but Ghostbur isn’t listening anymore.

“I just realize,” the phantom speaks, moving up the newly built stairs with feet that make no sound on the wooden steps, “that everyone’s a lot nicer to me, when I’m like this. When I’m dead.”

And it makes sense, of course, that people would feel more at ease speaking with someone when they’re not filled to the brim with anger and grief too strong for anyone else to understand, but Phil can’t help but bite his lips to hold back an _I would have been kind. I_ was _kind, when you were trying your best to help me understand, when you were hovering over that button as if you were about to detonate yourself._ “Doesn’t it get kind of lonely and cold, though?” he asks instead.

“No, well, I don’t really know what lonely is,” and of course he doesn’t, surrounded by people who are desperate to get closure, to ask him for things he cannot give, “but I guess not. I, I’ve been reading the books, Phil, and the Wilbur guy, no one liked him.”

The breath is knocked out of his lungs. Blissfully unaware, Ghostbur continues talking, as if he hasn’t just given Phil a gaping wound on his chest to match his, as if he hasn’t given him a good guess of what it would have felt like being at the receiving end of that sword. “He was pretty unpopular. He had a lot of, a lot of ideas that people didn’t like, and… and he- he met, he, don’t worry,” he stutters, “he met his downfall, eventually, so it’s fine, but,”

 _It’s not fine,_ Phil thinks, fingers trembling as he thinks of the diamond sword left abandoned in a chest. _I killed you_ _,_ _and it wasn’t fine, it wasn’t the deserving execution of a villain, it wasn’t the downfall of a tyrant, you begged me for death and you were in so much_ pain. _You killed yourself that day, and I was foolish enough to be your sword._

“I’ve just sorta learned that- if I could be anyone, it’s not him,” says the ghost who is still- still his son, he realizes, but not the son he lost, the one he last saw in that room filled with grief for a dream that was never meant to be.

He could tell the apparition about Wilbur. Tell him about the way he laughed, all breathless and loud; about the way he sang, voice deep and melodious as his fingers strummed the strings of his guitar. About the way he made a small little sound as he fell bleeding and sightless into his arms, a gasp and a sigh all at once, about how it sounded so similar to the noise he used to make as a child when Phil tucked him back in after a nightmare, relieved and safe and happy.

But this will not help Ghostbur, he knows, won’t do anything but hurt him in the only way anyone can, after death. The blue will send him away into some unfeeling void, to empty him of his feelings like a gutted fish. So he takes a deep breath, follows him upstairs, and says, “I remember him being… very ambitious. And... very fun.” Meaningless, light words, free from meaning. Free as the ghost that turns to face him through the glass he fits into his windows, smiling blankly.

“Yeah, that’s what Tubbo said- I think I’m more fun,” Ghostbur tells him, and Phil doesn’t have the heart to correct him.

* * *

There is only silence at night, nowadays. The thin fabric of the tent over him, the seaside breeze, the sounds of the waves lapping gently at the shore. It’s peaceful. He fucking hates it. That’s all he has to his name, now, just a bucketload of hate and the feeling of- of something _broiling_ , like the sea of lava at the bottom of the Nether.

“Tommy?” A cold chill spreads across his back. He hates it too. “Tommy, are you awake?”

He doesn’t sleep anymore. Trinitrotoluene sparks behind his eyes and tears away all his things, tears away L’Manberg as someone laughs in his ear. He can’t tell if it’s Dream or Wilbur. The hissing of the fuse fills his ears until it becomes static, unbearably loud.

“Toms?” asks the voice of his dead brother again, and it’s Wilbur’s voice echoing in his head, he can tell now, Wilbur laughing mad as Tommy glares at Techno in the pit, Wilbur crowing threats as he slams his fists against cobblestone, Wilbur calmly murmuring _eleven and a half stacks_ over the droning tones of _mellohi_ , it’s Wilbur, Wilbur, _Wilbur_ -

-Wilbur whispering comfort behind him as he presses something soft into his hands. He looks down. The chalky crystal is already filled, just like all the other blue the ghost hands out. He wonders if Wilbur’s even noticed it, that he’s giving people bits of his sadness instead of anything that can actually help. He holds it tight anyway, willing it to absorb just a bit more. It doesn’t work.

The cold chill puts a hand on his shoulder. “Are you feeling calmer, Tommy?” whispers Wilbur, as if they’re really out camping, as if there’s anyone else around to reprimand them for being loud, for not being asleep on time. As if there’s still a semblance of an order to his life.

“No,” Tommy mutters. “I feel pissed.”

“Oh.” His brother hums softly, then tugs on his shoulder. “Here, look.” Tommy turns to face him, irritable grumbles in his chest ready to make his displeasure known, then chokes as they get half-caught in his throat.

Wilbur’s face is open, honest, and something about it knocks the breath out of his lungs. It’s almost like they’d never been exiled that first time- almost like they were still enjoying peace, almost, except something is still off.

He can’t dwell on it, because Wilbur breaks into a little laugh, shaking his head. “Not at me- up there,” Wilbur whispers, pointing above them. Tommy turns. The stars glitter down at him. “Aren’t they _incredible?_ You wouldn’t get to see them so clearly back in L’Manberg, Tommy, we have to- we have to cherish them while we’ve got the time to.”

A frustrated scream coils up in his chest like a snake, so he chews it down, only letting it escape his mouth as a sigh that curls up white in the cold. “We’ve got plenty of fucking time,” he mutters, glaring up at the barren void of space. The longer he stares, the more it feels like he’s being pulled up into that empty space, isolated from everything and chilled to the bone; the cold spot sticking close beside him doesn’t help.

Said cold spot pats him on the shoulder. “Well, that’s not true! Eventually you’ll have to go back, and then you’ll have missed out on all the good camping experience out here.” And then Wilbur starts humming a melody he’s only heard in fleeting glimpses, from next to the line of brewing stands as his older brother sat atop the van with his guitar.

 _An unfinished piece,_ he’d said when asked, handling stacks upon stacks of paper just a week later. _I’m busy now, Tommy, it’s probably going to be a while until I can work on it again. Might stay unfinished forever, who knows, it’s-_

 _-my unfinished symphony, forever unfinished!_ His voice piercing through the debris, through the bitter scent of soul sand scattering through the air-

Tommy flinches, only barely managing to pass it off as a shiver from the cold. The Wilbur before the election would fight tooth and nail to get Tommy back into L’Manberg, and the Wilbur after it would blow it up for him, muttering betrayal and despair and _you’re the only one I can afford to trust_. His ghost does neither.

The ghost is kind, caring, loving; and that makes it all the more difficult to remember that Wilbur is gone, _actually_ gone. The realization is slow and bitter under that sweetness, like the aftertaste of fresh honey down the throat. “You’re really not him,” he mumbles, half-dazed.

Ghostbur blinks. “Who?”

_We have to cherish them while we’ve got the time to._

“It’s nothing,” he mutters, and turns to watch the stars glimmer. They look so close, but float so far away, out of reach, sparkling, burning, _combusting, eleven and a half-_

Tommy doesn’t sleep that night, but he has nightmares anyway.

* * *

Magic has ways of messing with the senses. Techno has had years to familiarize himself with those ways, books and weapons gleaming fierce in the battlefield as the voices in his head bay for blood. Riptide makes his trident feel like ocean currents under his fingers, and Silk Touch brushes soft against his calloused palms; Thorns curl tightly around each plate of armor, and Mending thrums like the echo of a blacksmith’s hammer beneath his feet.

Potions are no exception. The nether warts whisper until it grows even more unbearable than the voices in his head. That whisper turns into the crackling of embers with a dollop of fiery cream; a mother’s gentle murmur with the tear of a ghast; the metallic sound of swords clashing when he grinds up a rod of flames and sprinkles it into the concoction. Today, the excited giggle of Swiftness bubbles beside him as he rummages through his things, looking for the trading materials stockpiled over the week.

“Will they trade for anything like blue, do you think?” Ghostbur wonders aloud, staring at the silvery liquid as it grows louder with the addition of gunpowder. “Because I’ve got tons of the stuff.” His voice echoes dizzyingly against the walls of the cabin, easily drowned out by the babbling of the potions surrounding him.

“Probably not, unless there’s a shepherd around to think it’s a dye.” Techno emerges with his stash of emeralds, and throws them into his bag. He offers a few to Ghostbur, who takes the gems and cradles them to his bloodstained heart. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he jokes.

Ghostbur is an anomaly, he thinks. It must be magic, some sort of similar force that pulled him back from the dead, but he still sounds like Wilbur. Even the yellow sweater brushing past him feels like Wilbur’s, from back when they were children, sparring with no thoughts of revolution or conquest. He can’t find the physical proof that magic has twisted him into something different, and yet this is so clearly Ghostbur to him, not Wilbur. It puts him on edge.

“I won’t! You have so many of those, what do you- Techno, what do you even spend them on,” the ghost hums as they make their way through the snow. “I feel like you always, you always have everything on hand.”

“Well, uh- ender pearls, for one. Probably glass, for making glass bottles, y’know- grabbing sand from this place is- is kind of a pain, in case you haven’t noticed,” Techno quips, allowing himself a dry smile. “Also books, if they have em, but I’ve got a librarian who owes me their literal life, so, discounts. It’s not slavery, it’s indentured servitude.” He aims the last bit to the voices snickering in his head.

“Ohh… Do you reckon Phil should have discounts from L’Manberg, then? They kinda owe him for- for getting rid of Alivebur,” the ghost hums, using that weird nickname for Wilbur that Techno finds, in all honesty, kind of redundant. “But they’ve just been kind of neutral around him, I think. Or maybe _I_ owe him?” Ghostbur gasps, as if he’s had some sort of epiphany. “Wait, that’s it- Techno, now that I think about it, I- I sort of owe my existence to Phil, don’t I?” The ghost spins in the closest thing to mild distress he can manage, floating a bit off the ground. “I don’t really have anything to sell him, though. _Oh,_ Techno, what should I do, what’s a good thing to give Phil for free?”

Techno frowns. Gifting things that are not weaponry or armor is not his strong suit. “Uhhhhhh… blue?” he offers half-heartedly.

“Blue! Oh, but- Techno, I already give the blue out for free, I don’t- I don’t think I should _charge_ people for it.” Ghostbur continues the trip in deep thought, brows furrowed in concentration as he brainstorms. That’s fine by Techno; the voices are already yelling a million suggestions for him, most of them useless, and he needs every bit of his attention sorting through them.

In this sort of situation, they have to find out what sort of thing Phil would like, but Techno’s idea of Phil’s approval is vastly different from Wilbur’s- and now, Ghostbur’s. It’s been many years since he’s had to consider him as someone to look up to; most of his memories with the winged man are filled with conquests, adventures, and plans for world domination abandoned mere days after they achieved it, too quick for most people to even realize they’d actually done it.

Imagining Phil as a father figure is difficult. Phil has been his equal for much longer than he has been his caretaker, those brief few years the winged man pulled him from the ruins of an obsidian portal and nursed him back to health. Techno owed Phil his life too, he realizes, but his repayment had been saving the man's life in turn. They’d saved each other for so long, it’s hard to tell who’s behind by a few; Techno hasn’t been in danger of dying for a long, long time, and neither has Phil. The only other thing he’d done was-

“...being by his side,” Techno hums, and meets Ghostbur’s eyes when the other turns to look at him questioningly. “You’re still Phil’s kid.” And, because the voices are growing very irritably annoying, poking fun at him for being soft, he quirks a grin. “Philza’s growing old,” he jokes, “he needs his kids to visit often or he’ll get lonely.” Phil would probably smack him in the head for that, if he were here, but he’s not, so Techno wins.

Ghostbur’s eyes light up- or Techno imagines they do, since they’re still dull and lifeless the next time he blinks. “You think so? Oh, then- then I’ve got to have the best entertainment, I’ll- I’ll play music, I’ll bring board games, it’ll be like a little party,” he enthuses, reaching out to hold Techno’s hand and leaning in excitedly. “It’ll be _fun_ \- you should come, too, Techno!”

Techno blinks. After a while, he shrugs. “I’m kinda banned from- from L’Manberg, but I’ll- I’ll see what I can do, I’ve got some golden carrots lying around.” As the ghost nods and hurries off to the village appearing in the distance, he continues at a slower pace.

Magic, he decides, is definitely present in Ghostbur. When Wilbur had sat against him to play him a song, he’d smelled like wood burning in the campfire, like the warm soup he’d helped Phil cook, letting Techno relax for once in the company of another. In the dark crevices of Pogtopia, years later, the scent of gunpowder and ashes had covered Wilbur, from the ends of his hair to the tips of his boots, just as the bitter sting of soul sand had dusted his own cloak; so much so that Techno wondered how anyone was ever surprised when he ended up blowing L’Manberg to smithereens.

The ghost of Wilbur Soot, leaning in with the excitement and glee of a child, had smelled like nothing.

But there’s nothing to dwell on, really. Magic is meant to twist things into something new. As the villagers chat away with the ghost, Techno recalls the two ‘Alivebur’s he knew, and quietly wonders if madness is a sort of magic of its own.

**Author's Note:**

> I love SBI family headcanons as much as the next person, but Technoblade and Phil being equals and adventure friends is just a really cool concept that I couldn't help myself.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys liked this one!
> 
> ~~(Also, according to AO3 statistics, only a small percentage of people who read my fics actually leave kudos, so if you end up liking this fic, consider-)~~


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